The striking truth

Concerns about the pay and working conditions of graduate students and postdocs in academia have boiled over in North America and are bubbling up in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. These strikes have already led to notable victories for groups in the US and Canada on pay and benefits.

A major catalyst for all this activity was an unprecedented 40-day walkout by tens of thousands of academics at the University of California (UC) system seeking better pay and working conditions, which in early 2023 yielded record contracts for UC postdoctoral scholars, academic student employees and graduate student researchers. This major and very public win inspired action not only at other US universities but also among government scientists to fight for improved compensation through unionisation, including those working at dozens of government departments across California and thousands of early-career researchers at the US National Institutes of Health.